Q2 Wish List
by TheLittleDarkLord
Summary: With the release of Persona Q2 getting closer and closer, the four protagonists that will participate in the game decided to take some time to think what should be different from the first one and tell Atlus of their ideas.


_Just a little one-shot I decided to make in anticipation for Persona Q2. It's very silly, everyone will be quite out of character and it's just a funny way to share some of my expectations for the game, so don't take it too seriously._

 _I myself can't take the story seriously and I'm the freaking writer…_

 _ **Disclaimer:** No, I don't own Persona. It's Atlus's intellectual property. I also don't own any of the characters. No, no... I only own this little story about a little game I'm not even sure if people consider important._

 _No, really. I know there are people eagerly waiting for this game just as much as I am and that makes me happy, but I also know it's just a spin-off for a portable in the end of its lifetime, so I'm not sure how much it truly matters_ _._

 _Not trying to shit the game, I'll still get it as soon as I can, but I can't deny that if there was a Persona 6 on the horizon, Q2 would have almost no importance._

* * *

 **Q2 Wish List**

It was quite rare for Igor to leave the Velvet Room, but whenever he did, at least one of his assistants would stay to keep watch.

That day was different, though. At the request of the main characters from the three last main entries in the Persona series (and the portable version of 3), Igor let them use the room during his absence and took his assistants with him. Why they wanted to be completely alone was unknown, but since there was no sign of a sixth entry anytime soon the Velvet Room was temporarily out of service, so lending the place to the protagonists wouldn't cause any harm.

Because altering its appearance took quite a good amount of effort, the Velvet Room was left the way it was in the last game, Persona 5, and as such looked like a prison. Not exactly the most inviting or pleasant place for a meeting, but beggars can't be choosers and the main characters decided to just roll with it.

After all, Igor had already been nice enough to let them use the place. Asking for even more sounded almost abusive.

The first one to arrive was the blue-haired protagonist of Persona 3, pen and paper in hand. Not much long after him, a red-haired girl with a similar outfit entered and sat at his side. In case you don't know who I'm talking about, that girl was no one less than the female protagonist of the PSP version of Persona 3. Some minutes later, the silver-haired protagonist of Persona 4 also arrived, casually greeted the others and sat on a chair.

The last person that should be in that meeting, the protagonist of Persona 5, arrived out of breath, almost ten minutes late. He apologized for the delay, took a chair and sat at the table. The female protagonist scolded him for being late, but the protagonist of Persona 4 convinced her to go easy on him, saying that he, as the main character of the latest entry in the series, had the tightest schedule of them all.

The girl almost countered saying both him and her male counterpart also had recent spin-off appearances and still managed to appear in time unlike their late compatriot but ended giving up on the idea.

With everyone finally reunited, the blue-haired MC took the paper and pen he brought and began writing something. When he finished, he raised the paper from the table and said:

"Alright. Our wish list for Persona Q2."

"Wait, are you seriously planning to call it that, Minato?" his female counterpart asked.

"No, it's just a temporary name. I'll change it to something else before sending to Atlus."

"Just out of curiosity, what is the problem with calling it our wish list, Minako?" the Persona 4 MC asked the girl.

"There's no problem for us to call it that. The problem is sending it to Atlus with that name," the girl answered.

"And why is that so?"

"It's too informal, Yu," the Persona 5 MC answered for Minako.

"But they're our creators, right?" the silver-haired protagonist commented. "Wouldn't it be almost like talking with our parents?"

"In a certain way, yes. However, we can't forget that our 'parents' aren't just designers, programmers and writers. Some of them are managers. Literally," Minato pointed out. "If we want to talk with them about the games, we have to do it their way."

"Aaaah… Too informal. I see," Yu nodded. "Just like Ren said,"

"Ren?" Minato and Minako asked at the same time.

"Yes, that's his name," Yu then pointed at the Persona 5 MC.

The female protagonist looked at the black-haired boy and asked:

"Wasn't your name Akira?"

"It's… complicated," the boy answered.

"Oh, I see… It's the same thing that happened to me," Minato sighed.

"In that case, how do you prefer to be called?" Minako asked.

The P5 protagonist thought for a while before answering:

"Call me Akira. You're already used to it."

"Wouldn't it be better if it's Ren?" Yu suddenly asked. "I mean, it's your name in the anime and the dance spin off, right? They're probably more known than the manga."

"Like you're one to give an opinion on the matter, Mr. Name That Stayed The Most Consistent Out Of All Of Us," Minato grumbled. "Heck, even Minako and I had to choose how we preferred to be called."

"Hey! Don't blame it on me! If you want to be upset at someone, be at the developers," Yu countered a bit offended.

"Guys, the small talk is great and all, but I think we may be getting a bit sidetracked here," Akira (or Ren, I sincerely don't know anymore) warned.

"You're right. That's not what we came here to discuss," Minato nodded. "However…"

The male P3 protagonist put the paper on the table and quickly wrote down:

 _\- Choose one name for us and stick to it;_

"Before I forget it," Minato explained. "Now, back to the main topic. So, what do we want in Persona Q2?"

The four protagonists stared into space, trying to think on anything they would like.

"Oh, I have a good one," the blue-haired boy said as he began writing.

 _\- Make magic skills more efficient;_

"Yeah, definitely a good one," Yu agreed. "Magic skills weren't very good in the previous game. Not to say they were also very expensive when compared to the main games."

"And while we're at it…" Minato continued writing.

 _\- Nerf physical skills;_

"Now, with that one I have to disagree," Yu commented.

"Huh? Why so?"

"I don't think all physical skills were too powerful. Myriad Arrows and Hassou Tobi were."

"Still are," Minako complemented. "At least, Hassou Tobi is, but to get it you have to grind as hell."

"And Myriad Arrows has bad accuracy," Akira also said.

"So, instead we ask to nerf only those two moves?" Minato raised an eyebrow.

"NO," Minako interjected. "The bad accuracy of Myriad Arrows in the game already balances it out and people would complain if they nerfed Hassou Tobi. I for one would."

"Then what do you propose?" the blue-haired MC grumbled. "If they don't do anything, it'll be another festival of Panic/Agility Bind plus Myriad Arrows/Hassou Tobi."

The other three protagonists took some time to think.

"Now that I'm thinking about it, the real problem here isn't the moves, but Panic and Agility Bind. Actually, only Panic," Yu commented.

"Panic?" Minato asked.

"It was a very overpowered status ailment in that game," the P4 protagonist began explaining. "If they nerf or eliminate Panic, the whole problem of spamming Myriad Arrows would end!"

"I see… Makes sense," Minato commented.

 _\- Change or nerf how Panic works in the new game;_

"You boys are seeing it the wrong way," Minako commented.

"Huh? How so?" the girl's counterpart asked.

"The problem isn't Panic by itself. I mean, it's kind of a broken status ailment, that's for sure, but why do you think it's more used in Persona Q than in the main games?"

Silence. Nobody was completely sure of the question or which point she wanted to make.

"Because of the sub-persona system, duh," Minako answered her own question a bit annoyed.

"The sub-persona system?" Yu tilted his head confused.

"In the main games, only us, the protagonists, can use more than one persona. The others can only use one and are limited by the skills their personas get," the girl crossed her arms. "However, Persona Q allowed EVERYONE to have one persona that could be made from scratch however we wanted."

"I think I know what she's trying to say," Akira suddenly affirmed. "Because everyone had access to one fully customizable persona, you could easily make lots of personas with stuff that make inflicting Panic easier like Impure Reach and Panic Circle."

"Not only Panic, but any other status ailment or bind," Minako added. "Just make a persona full of those skills and stick it to the person with the highest luck. And before anyone jumps to conclusions, I'm not shitting on the sub-persona system by itself. It's fine, I like it, I just think they should make some changes to balance things and avoid making ailments so abusable."

"Interesting… You make a good point," Minato tapped the tip of the pen on his chin.

"But I didn't say anything," Yu said confused.

"Not **YU** , I said **YOU** ," the blue-haired boy grumbled. "In any case, I better write it down before I forget."

 _\- Nerf status ailments or make it harder to abuse them;_

"Now, what's next?"

Some more minutes of thoughtful silence.

"What about the labyrinths?" Yu asked. "Like, make some of them less FOE centered than the ones in the previous game."

"Oh, that's good," Minato agreed.

 _\- Make labyrinths less FOE centered;_

"Someone care to explain that one to me?" Minako asked.

"I would like to hear about it as well," Akira commented.

"The FOE idea was good in general, but most of the labyrinths' puzzles were centered around them," Yu went on to explain. "Nothing wrong with it, it's just that after a while it got a bit repetitive and the labyrinths with puzzles that involved moving to rooms in a certain order or solving riddles were more interesting. Again, nothing unbearable, but still…"

"That is, until you reach Inaba Pride Exhibit," Minato sourly added.

"Oh, yes… There's that…" Yu grumbled.

"What's wrong with that Inaba Pride Exhibit?" Akira raised an eyebrow.

"That labyrinth was almost exclusively about navigating between FOEs. It got very tiring and frustrating very quickly. It also goes on for far too long, in my opinion," Minato told.

"Yeah… I can see how it would start to grind on you after some time," the P5 main character rubbed his chin.

"Now, what else?"

Another minute of silence.

"Oh! Oh! I had a good idea! Pass me the pen and the paper!" Yu said agitated.

Minato passed the pen and paper in his hands to his companion, who immediately wrote down:

 _\- Explore more of the characters backstories during interactions;_

"Yeah, definitely," Minato nodded.

"Again, nothing wrong with the ones from the last game, but they were mostly just for giggles and fancies," the white-haired MC said. "Do you remember Chie and Akihiko? They were funny, without a doubt, but it would've been so good if they explored their personalities in more depth. Like Akihiko talking about his past in the orphanage or Chie speaking of her friendship with Yukiko like she did in the main game."

"Or Mitsuru talking about the weight of carrying the Kirijo name or Fuuka talking about how…"

The sound of Minako clearing her throat made the two boys stop talking and give her a confused look.

"I see you two are having a lot of fun talking about what should be put in the game, but in case you two have forgotten, you aren't the only ones who will be part of it," the girl crossed her arms annoyed.

Both Minato and Yu blushed a bit and murmured a low:

"Sorry."

"I'm not taking sides, but I think it's reasonable for them to have more ideas than us," Akira said to Minako. "They're the ones who were in the first game, so they know how it works and what should be improved."

"But she's right. You two will be part of the next game," Yu said. "It's fair that you also give some suggestions."

"Happy to know you realized it," the red-haired protagonist said in a slightly sarcastic tone. "In that case, pass me the paper, because I have an idea."

Yu obeyed and passed the paper and pen to his companion, who lost no time to write:

 _\- Be careful with character interactions;_

"What do you mean?" Minato asked the girl.

"It's the main cast of three games. Not counting the Velvet Room assistants, we have twenty-eight characters. Can you imagine the mess it may become if they aren't careful with the interactions?"

"Oh… I see your point."

"Which means… We may have the problem of the backstories not being well explored again…" Yu lamented.

"And also…" Minako began writing again.

 _\- Have a reasonable way to explain how everyone got together and why it didn't affect the main games IF you're going to make it canon as well;_

"Is that somehow related to everyone forgetting what happened in the first game?" Minato asked after seeing what his female counterpart wrote.

"Yup, because, in my sincerest opinion, that was a bit of an asspull," the girl said putting the pen and paper aside. "It also killed the entire purpose of the interactions between the casts of both games. I mean, what was the point of them sharing their experiences if nobody remembered anything? It made the plot feel pointless, like the game was made for the sole purpose of fanservice."

"Uh… Wasn't it really made purely for fanservice?" Yu scratched the back of his head.

"Then why make it canon?!" Minako shot back.

"What I'm about to say isn't related to the wish list, but since you talked about canon there's one little thing I kind of wanted to ask you," Minato said to the red-haired girl.

"What?"

"If you're going to appear alongside me and the rest of the other characters, does it mean you're canon now?"

"Oh, right! You're Canon chan now!" Yu mischievously joked.

"Don't call me that! It's embarrassing!" Minako complained, her cheeks turning a slight pink.

"Well, it's better than Non-Canon chan," Minato sneered.

"I just won't beat the crap out of you two because I promised Igor the Velvet Room would be intact when he returned," the girl growled irritated.

"Alright, calm your nerves you three. The last thing we need is to start an argument for such a silly reason," Akira quickly said, trying to prevent a fight.

"Yeah, that's not what we came here to discuss, but since you two touched the subject…" the female protagonist grabbed both the paper and pen.

 _\- Decide if Minako is canon or not;_

"That sounds like a selfish request," Yu commented.

"Shut up. Nobody asked for your opinion," Minako shot back, putting both paper and pen aside.

"Now, what else could we ask for?" Akira stared at the ceiling, rubbing his chin.

"Why don't you write something?" Minato asked.

Thanks to the expression the P5 protagonist made, it became very clear he was caught off guard by the sudden offer.

"Me?" the boy pointed at himself.

"Of course," Minato grabbed the pen and offered to his companion. "You'll be in the game too but is the only one who hasn't asked for anything yet."

"I don't know," Akira scratched the back of his head. "I'm relatively new in the franchise and I also wasn't in the first Persona Q… You guys are probably the best to have more interesting ideas."

"I also wasn't in the first game, yet I had a good idea," Minako pointed out.

"Yes, but you at least played the game. I didn't. The only thing I know about it is the story."

"You didn't?" Yu asked a bit shocked. "You definitely should."

The P4 protagonist got closer to the main character of his game's sequel and whispered on his ear:

"It's the best… game… on the 3DS!"

"The rating on Metacritic disagrees," Minako grinned mockingly.

"I'm not speaking with you," Yu shot at the girl.

"But she's right," Minato said. "Just because you appeared in the game doesn't mean you have to think it's the best game ever."

"What are you saying? It's YOUR game too!"

"But I'm not delusional," the blue-haired protagonist rolled his eyes. "It wasn't a BAD game, but it was definitely a FLAWED game. Even if I'm one of the protagonists, I won't sugarcoat it."

"Well, you can say whatever you want, but I still think it's the best game on the 3DS!" Yu said with conviction. "And I'm not saying it just because I'm one of the protagonists. I'm saying it because I worked in that game and put my sweat and energy to make it the best game I could just like I did with any other game I had a role in. Even if it was just a spin-off, a cameo or a quick appearance, I gave it my all! That's why Persona Q is the best game on the 3DS! Because I'm proud of my work and my developers!"

Both Minato and Minako began clapping with extremely nonchalant expressions on their faces.

"Hey! Stop with that sarcasm!" Yu complained.

"Now, if you already said everything you wanted to…" Minato stopped clapping and offered the pen to Akira again.

Still a bit unsure of what he could possibly ask that would improve the game's experience, Akira took the pen with slight awkwardness and began staring at the paper. Noticing he was having difficulty, Minako decided to help him.

"Hey, you just said you know the story, right?"

"Huh? Yes, I did," the boy answered.

"Then why don't you write something related to plot?"

"Related to plot? But what could I possibly…"

The sentence was left unfinished, as Akira's eyes widened in realization, an idea beaming on his head.

"Seems like you thought of something," Minako commented with a smile. "And by your face, it seems to be one big thing, right?"

Wrong. It wasn't one thing, but two.

 _\- Make a better development for the new characters;_

 _\- Don't make the game's story meaningless;_

"What do they mean?" Yu asked after reading what Akira wrote.

"The first one is about giving the Q2 exclusive characters a better development throughout the story," the boy went to explain. "Rei and Zen were nice, but their backstories only became really important in the game AFTER the fourth labyrinth. Before that, we only had some few glimpses of them whenever a boss was defeated and never talked about it until the Clocktower. It would be much better if those new characters mention things about their lives or objectives more often. Oh! And maybe even make some of their decisions and agendas affect how our parties interact or meet."

"Huh… That sounds good," Minako commented.

"What about the second one?" the girl's counterpart inquired.

"It goes hand-in-hand with Minako's last request," Akira told. "Because everyone forgets what happened in Persona Q and the world you were trapped in didn't really exist, the entire plot becomes pointless. I didn't want to phrase it this way, but… All the interactions, revelations and fights have no meaning. Everything was for NOTHING. Or at least, that's how I feel…"

Minato and Yu nodded in agreement. They didn't notice any of those things before, but after hearing Akira pointing them out, it would be very difficult to not see them anymore.

"And with these, now we have…" the P5 protagonist looked at the paper and began reading aloud everything they wrote.

 _\- Choose one name for us and stick to it;_

 _\- Make magic skills more efficient;_

 _\- Nerf status ailments or make it harder to abuse them;_

 _\- Make labyrinths less FOE centered;_

 _\- Explore more of the characters backstories during interactions;_

 _\- Be careful with character interactions;_

 _\- Have a reasonable way to explain how everyone got together and why it didn't affect the main games IF you're going to make it canon as well;_

 _\- Decide if Minako is canon or not;_

 _\- Make a better development for the new characters;_

 _\- Don't make the game's story meaningless;_

"I think that's a good amount of stuff," Akira commented, then looked at his companions. "Do you want to add something else?"

"I think it's fine," Minako said.

"Me too," Minato agreed.

"I sincerely can't think of anything else," Yu told.

"In this case, I think we can send it to Atlus already."

"Hold on just a second. What about the name?" Minako warned.

"Oh, right. We can't call it a Persona Q2 wish list," Akira scratched his cheek awkwardly.

"So, what do we call it then?" Yu asked.

For a few moments, there was nothing but total silence as the four teenagers kept staring at each other, apparently expecting someone to step in and give an idea. Because each one expected someone else to say something, nobody took the initiative.

Or at least until Minato suggested:

"Why don't we think about a name while we go to the post office?"

The other three protagonists agreed without a second thought and immediately got up from their chairs to leave the Velvet Room.

Fortunately, thanks to its nature of being invisible to most people and a lack of malevolent beings around (all the villains received one month of vacations from Atlus), there was no need to organize neither lock the Velvet Room. They could just leave it exactly the way it was without a worry in the world and continue with their agendas.

Besides, by the time they left the Velvet Room, Igor should be already on his way back and would surely arrive at any moment. Unless something unexpected happened, there was absolutely no need to worry about the iconic place of the Persona franchise.

However, thinking about that made a question pop up in the mind of one of the four protagonists.

"Hey, guys," Yu suddenly called for everyone as they made their way to the post office.

"What?" Minato asked without looking back at his colleague.

"I know we shouldn't mind other people's business and it isn't anything important, but after using the Velvet Room today I couldn't help wondering something."

"And that would be?"

"What do you think Igor does whenever he isn't in the Velvet Room?"

Minato, Minako and Akira stopped walking and began thinking about Yu's question.

"Now that you mention it, I don't it was ever said a single time, has it?" the blue-haired boy asked back turning to the P4 protagonist.

"In fact, it hasn't even been suggested or implied before," Akira added.

"Elizabeth, Theodore, Margaret and Lavenza also never gave a single hint on it," Minako rubbed her chin thoughtful.

Like Yu said, it wasn't any of their business and very likely not important, but now that the question was brought up, they couldn't help but wonder what the mysterious master of the Velvet Room did whenever he wasn't taking care of his "office".

 _ **Not far away from there…**_

The movie wasn't anything special. Acting was just decent, the soundtrack left a lot to be desired, special effects ranged from mediocre to acceptable, pacing wasn't very good, and the quality of the image was quite cheap. The writing was surprisingly good, though, but not enough to compensate for the other glaring flaws and more than half of the audience left before the fifteen minutes mark.

Not that it meant much when the number of people who bought tickets to watch the movie was a miserable eighteen…

However, despite all its flaws, Igor continued watching the movie, surprisingly interested on it. After a respectful number of good movies, finally seeing and understanding what humans considered a bad one was quite fascinating on its own way.

Whenever people want to know about something different, be it a culture or civilization, they always want to know what it has of best to offer. That's not wrong by any means, but what people usually forget is that everything has a bad side and said bad side also has numerous interesting things to teach.

It was like reading a story from another perspective, from the eyes of someone else and seeing what you usually wouldn't. Mistakes are made all the time and they can teach valuable lessons that good things may fail to do as well. That's why seeing that bad movie was interesting for him, even if he knew it was quite mediocre.

Having his assistants with him also made watching the movie an enjoyable experience.

Most of the time, leaving the Velvet Room unattended was extremely dangerous as Igor's absence alone was enough to destabilize it. With none of his assistants to take his place, the Velvet Room would become even more unpredictable.

Despite that, Igor felt there would be no problem to lend the place to the protagonists for a little while. With the world at peace and no danger lurking in the shadows, the Velvet Room was likely to remain mostly stable until they returned. That greatly pleased the long-nosed master of persona fusion, as it meant he would have some time to spend with his assistants outside the formalities of work.

Surely, they could look like a handful at times, especially Elizabeth, who picked on her brother to the point of it almost becoming emotional abuse, but Igor wouldn't want them any other way.

Those small moments with Elizabeth, Theodore, Margaret and Lavenza when they were just themselves and he could be with them without work involved brought a surprisingly big amount of joy to him.

That was probably why the protagonists always said free time was the best thing in the games and he should start getting some more for himself.

"Maybe I should do as they advised me and start working on my Social Stats," Igor said to himself, being careful not to speak too loudly and disturb the other viewers.

Which, by the way, were only Elizabeth, Theodore, Margaret, Lavenza and a man on the front row that was fast asleep.

 **The End**

* * *

 _Before I stop bothering you, I just wanted to say:_

 _1º There are two things said in the story that aren't real expectations I have for the game and were just for giggles. I won't specify here which ones, but you probably know already._

 _2º Because I wanted to keep this story as short and simple as I could, I avoided making the explanations too long and turned them into slightly altered versions of my opinions that fitted (or at least I think fitted) the characters and the flow of the story better. Unfortunately, it had the side effect of making some of the explanations not tell exactly what I wanted HOW I wanted. I like how the story is, so instead of rewriting it I'll leave a "review" explaining each of my points in greater detail. It's just in case something wasn't well explained, so if you don't have the need or the will to read it, feel free to ignore its existence._

 _Also, sorry for the inconvenience of putting it in the review section. I didn't want to put it down here because it's quite long and breaks the mood of the story, but I also can't make it a separate chapter because the user guidelines of the site forbid using the chapter system to publish non-story content (which is understandable). I checked the rules again and didn't find anything forbidding me of doing it in the review section, so I hope it won't make me get banned._

 _(knock on wood)_

 _If it's forbidden, please PM me so I can take the story down before someone takes ME down._

 _Thank you so much for reading and I hope this little story was worth your time._

 _See ya!_


End file.
